God’s Grace in Deuteronomy

By J. Gary Millar

Long before the New Testament, grace was always the driving force of God’s relationship with his people. Deuteronomy reveals God’s unrelenting grace: from choosing an undeserving people to promising a future transformed heart.

It was in a theology lecture at the University of Aberdeen in 1990 that I was first blown away by the words of Deuteronomy 7:6–8:

“For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors, he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. “

Up to this point, I had operated with a misguided and reductionist view of the Old Testament as a rather long, pharisaical injunction to be good, before the gospel of grace exploded in the New Testament. At a stroke, Moses shattered my perceptions and sparked an interest in this book that has persisted for most of my life. Since then, when people have asked the question (as they often have) “Why write a commentary on Deuteronomy?” my answer has always begun with the glorious truth that it is a book that is saturated with the grace of God.

God’s Gracious Commitment to His People

This grace only becomes clearer in chapter 4. In one of the key statements in the book in Deuteronomy 4:6–8, Moses explains that because God has spoken, they should listen and obey,

This provision is clearly undeserved. It flows from the fact that the God of grace has drawn near to them, has spoken to them at Horeb, and will continue to do so, making his presence with them obvious.

Grace on Every Page

This divine grace continues to play a dominant note at every stage of the book. In 4:25–32, the idea of exile is introduced — losing the land and being scattered among the nations. No sooner, however, is this terrible prospect introduced than God announces his intention to bring them back home. “He will not leave you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them by oath, because the Lord your God is a compassionate God” (Deut 4:30–31).

This is God’s grace in action.

In 6:10–12, Moses urges the people not to take God’s grace for granted, but to remember that all that they have is ultimately a gift from Yahweh:

“And when the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give you—a land with large and beautiful cities that you did not build, houses full of every good thing that you did not fill them with, cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied, be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.” (Deut 6:10–12)

Grace Still to Come

It is no surprise that the past and present grace is augmented by the future grace of chapter 30, which looks ahead to the day when God will finally resolve the most basic problem faced by God’s people: that they are incapable of consistent obedience, and that they desperately need God himself to circumcise their hearts (30:6).

All of this leads eventually to Moses’s final words at the end of the blessing in chapter 33, which provides a fitting climax to a book that, unlike any other, has set the trajectory of the Old Testament firmly on an arc of grace:

How happy you are, Israel!

Who is like you,

a people saved by the Lord?

He is the shield that protects you,

the sword you boast in.

Your enemies will cringe before you,

and you will tread on their backs.

The Old Testament’s Gospel Shape

After Deuteronomy, it should be crystal clear that any careful and faithful reading of the Old Testament will be a grace-shaped reading. The sinfulness of the people has been well established, and we should not be surprised to see it repeatedly raising its ugly head in the books that follow, whether in the history books from Joshua to 2 Kings that are so shaped by Deuteronomy or the preaching of the prophets who provide God’s real-time commentary on that history.

Already in Deuteronomy, the basic “gospel-shape,” to use an anachronistic term, of the Old Testament has crystalized: God rescues sinful people, speaking to them, tracing out the shape of the life they must live, finding a way to forgive them when they find they cannot live in this way, and promising the resources they will need to do so. All this and more flows from the Deuteronomic doctrine of grace.

This article has been adapted from J. Gary Millar’s commentary on Deuteronomy in the Evangelical Biblical Theology series, published by Lexham Academic.